


Brothers On A Hotel Bed

by MFLuder



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Originally Posted on LiveJournal, POV Third Person Omniscient, Sibling Incest, Song Lyrics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-06
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2020-01-05 12:05:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18365654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MFLuder/pseuds/MFLuder
Summary: Cause now we say goodnight from our own separate sides, like brothers on a hotel bed.





	Brothers On A Hotel Bed

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted April 12, 2006, at [my DW](https://mf-luder-xf.dreamwidth.org/21447.html). Inspired, obviously, by Death Cab for Cutie's _Brothers on a Hotel Bed_.

The room lies in darkness, not even the cool moonlight able to reach the forms that lie on the bed through thick curtains. One more monster, one more day, only one bed in a town hosting a motorcycle brigade.

They lie together but apart, each pushed to his own side, clinging to the edge. Somehow though, in the darkest time of the night, hands are flung into the middle and fingers somehow intertwine. Neither speaks, neither acts as though they are awake, though each knows the other is.

The lighter one remains stoic, refusing to admit what he wants. He wants to give the one person he holds most dear, the brother he shouldn't love that way, the brother he'd die for, the brother he can't live without, what he desires: normality. Wishes he could somehow give him that, but still keep him for himself. But he is a hunter and he knows nothing else – never was taught how to be anything else – and with that existence comes the silence and denial. So he lies, keeping his breath even, attempting to make Sam think he's asleep and illicitly and unconsciously grips those long fingers tighter.

The dark one cries in silence, holding back all his wanting. Never does he dare to dream or imagine that the love he feels – the love that every day feels like it will kill him – can ever be returned. He is no hunter in any way more than technique and skill and he knows he can never be what the other brother wants. He's different; he's too young, too wise. So he lies, accepting the tightening of the illusionary sleeping fingers about his and knows that if he can't have it all, at least Dean gives him this.

The space between them grows more and more and one day maybe they'll learn to share, to speak, or one day maybe it'll all just end.

_************************************************************************_

_You may tire of me as our December sun is setting because I'm not who I used to be_

_***********************************************************************_

That night after Jessica’s death, his older brother came to see just how much Sam had changed. Years have passed; Sam looks younger and yet more world-wise, and Dean couldn't help but stare at the flames, thinking that they looked like a winter's sunset: golden and bright and it seems so far off, he's removed. He knows his brother's frame is there next to him, but the man himself is actually miles and miles away, eyes unseeing but hard and it was then Dean realized things could never be the same.

As Dean watched the flames flicker and with it a brother he thought he knew, Dean saw they'd both changed and could anyone recognize them now? Does Sam see him as who he is? And can he come to love the new brother who rose from the ashes the same way as he did the old brother?

That night they sleep in the car, silence mocking them as both are unable to speak of momentous things that should be spoken of. At one point the whisper of a mouth opening is heard but neither can know who it was as the sound turns into a sigh and all goes still again.

_***********************************************************************_

_No longer easy on the eyes but these wrinkles masterfully disguise_  
The youthful boy below who turned your way and saw  
Something he was not looking for: both a beginning and an end 

_************************************************************************_

It's years and years later and nothing has changed. Another motel bed that looks no different and this time they're both wounded, the weight of the years is crushing down on them. Years that have added age to their faces, to their bodies; hunting has caused them nothing but pain and heartache and separation and both know it and neither one says a thing. It's their code. Winchester's don't speak.

It's without words and without sound, as if the world has stopped – time has stopped – that they turn to one another and in that moment years of youth are regained and it's wrong and right and neither one knows how or why. They just _know_.

They come together softly, not a glance, not a whisper, just touch and one brother cries out silently while the other's tears crash down his face and into lighter hair. Then it's heat and more tears from both of them, wet meeting wet as kisses and mouths taste like salt and pain and horror, and an undercurrent of what neither will admit to feeling: love.

Ghosts of touches and demons of lust that couldn't be more tender break from unfulfilled dreams into reality; the air thickens like a storm and maybe, just maybe, that's all it is. Soon it's slick skin against a hard body and parts just fit. Sam wonders why they couldn't have done this years before, while Dean wonders if he can break.

It's pain and pleasure and limbs tangle and more tears, more silent whispers. As final trembles fade, there's one more touch, the most angelic of kisses and neither one can cry anymore, they're all cried out. Age seems to descend again as time resumes and it's not fair. Then stoicism becomes one brother again and he turns away and after a moment, after one lingering glance at the way the shoulders hunch and the body forms, a hand sweeping up his back and just barely holding, brushing, the face that he knows so well and it should have happened years ago, the other brother turns away too. 

They should have done this before, a decade or so ago, shouldn't have been with others, should just have let this happen between them. Now they're back to their separate sides, back to being brothers on a single motel bed, neon light piercing through shambling blinds and it reminds Sam of a winter sunset in its fading pink and yellow tones. He knows this was both a beginning and an end, and maybe that's all it was ever meant to be.

_************************************************************************_

_But now he lives inside someone he does not recognize  
When he catches his reflection on accident_

_************************************************************************_

The next morning as they begin a daily routine, nothing is mentioned. Silence continues as their standard. But Dean takes longer in the bathroom than usual and Sam wonders if he hides tears as Sam does once his brother leaves the room.

A compact body fills the mirror, seeming larger than life and still he refuses to look in the mirror, he can't stand himself right now. It was wrong and all he wants is to crawl into a hole and die but if that isn't possible, curling up in his brother's arms sounds so good. Finally, he glances in the mirror because he can't resist.

He looks no different. His face has the impression of soon-to-come wrinkles, crow's feet around the eyes, down-turned mouth lines from too many years of bottled feelings and too few laughs. Light brown hair is fading slowly to gray, his once curved lips now have thinned – despite that, middle age had been good to them both. They're both _alive_. But, though he's not that old, he feels as though the weight of the world is upon his shoulders and it has made him like it – tired and worn.

He starts to leave, afraid to face the shape that is his brother, afraid of what it all means. He catches his reflection once more and this time it's someone he doesn't recognize. Things have changed but he doesn't know how. He's different though. Not older or wiser, just different. When you can't recognize yourself what does that mean?

He steps out of the bathroom and it takes only one word.

“Sam.”

_************************************************************************_

_On the back of a motor bike_  
With your arms outstretched trying to take flight  
Leaving everything behind 

_************************************************************************_

One brother can't believe the other's gone and the younger can't believe he isn't there anymore. He's free – free of everything messed up and not normal – but if that's the case, why is there an empty hole that he refuses to put a name to?

He's left everything he never wanted and he couldn't be happier. On impulse he buys a small motor bike and cruises up and down the streets his college resides in, the wind in his hair, creating an alibi for the tears that leak from dry eyes. He goes out to the shore and is anything more beautiful than clear blue water and the smell of salt? It reminds him though, the salt tastes like the brother that he no longer has by his side and back on his bike he goes, unable to stand it.

At the same time, Dean drives, nowhere in mind, windows of an empty car open. Empty because he is nothing. Only half, only nothing without the boy who needed him so much, who grew into a man that needed no one.

_************************************************************************_

_But even at our swiftest speed we couldn't break from the concrete  
In the city where we still reside_

_************************************************************************_

Vowing once the demon was dead, he was leaving; he is. They'd been in this God-forsaken town for too long and he needed to go. Like a river he had a course to run and it no longer ran beside its twin. His twin had nothing for him. He had tried to offer everything, and all he seemed to do was give and give, yet the other river never changed course, too stubborn and set in its ways. He didn't want Sam and Sam was fine with that; he needed no one.

He tears out of the motel, one second wishing he still had his old motor-bike, but then he's running, gaining speed and soon he matches the wind; he is the wind. Faster, faster, and it seems he could take off, fly away, never come back, not to earth and not to a brother he aches for. He feels at any moment it'll all be gone and he can soar. He races faster wishing his feet off the concrete but in the end, he realizes he can't fly. He can't be what he's not.

He's made it to the edge of town and from here he could hop a bus and be gone, never looking back. But as his breath returns from its journey with the wind, he knows he can't be without the one who completes him. Only, Sam doesn't think of it that way; Sam doesn't think. He just _knows_. Knows he can't leave Dean, not again.

It takes him hours but finally he reaches a familiar motel door and as he steps in onto the faded rug, his brother composes himself, hazel eyes reflecting turmoil and darkness within and it seems like a demon has taken control of his insides. He can't breathe, that can't be Sam. Back.

And all it takes is one word.

“Dean.”

_************************************************************************_

_And I have learned, that even landlocked lovers yearn for the sea like navy men_

_************************************************************************_

It's years later and they've both lost count – lost track of the days and years – that it's been just them. They'd never expected to grow old. It doesn't seem right, yet neither can begrudge the time they had together, apart on separate sides, or the times when they lay with each other, under the skin. Dean had one wish and his soulmate, his brother, couldn't deny him. He'd wanted to see the sea, the one place that had been Sam's solace and torturer in his time without the man that rests in his arms. 

As his last breaths leave him, Sam turns his head and it's one last kiss, one last touch, stare, and they each whisper one last word to each other, full of sorrow and love and promise for when they meet again on the other side.

“Dean.”

“Sammy.”

He's gone and Sam can't cry, he's all cried out. He just holds the slowly cooling body, cradling it, insides churning like the sea is on this cold and gray evening. Just above the horizon he can see a December sun set and the air tastes like his gone-but-never-forgotten brother, and he thinks about that sun's heat and even though he can't feel it, he always knows it's there; just like Dean.

_*********************************************************************_

_Like brothers on a hotel bed_

_************************************************************************_

Another night and though they're older still, some things haven't changed. Neither one speaks. It's without words that they show their love. Through small glances, fast and fevered kisses, gentle and sweet kisses.

Neither one just gives and neither just takes; it's an equal pairing. Fingers brush against a freckled shoulder and lips follow, then down, down, down and there is heat and no greater feeling of love could there be. Callused hands bring him up for another kiss and oxygen isn't needed. They move in time, in rhythm, though both pause as a far-off train whistle shatters their warm cocoon. But with a nudge of a nose they fall back easily; no one could see where one brother ends and the other begins.

Sam has stopped wondering why they never did this sooner, just loves what he has, that it finally happened. 

Dean still refuses to voice anything, he's still a hunter, but now his most prized catch happens to be his brother and he shows with his body everything he can't say, and it's all Sam had ever asked for.

Completion comes in mind-shattering bursts of love and devotion and they pant and keen, whimper, and touch. Soon though, reality crashes back into place and both turn to their sides of the bed and nothing more is said as they cling, cling to illusions, cling to falsities and maybe one day they'll learn to be more.

For now one brother wishes they could touch, just _be_ , and the other wishes he could allow himself that touch, but knows he would surely break; he's never been as strong.

_************************************************************************_

_You may tire of me as our December sun is setting 'cause I'm not who I used to be_

_************************************************************************_

It's another day in December, and hasn't it always been December for them, and the last brother breathes his own last, his only regret being it didn't happen before his brother's because it's been hell, a time of bittersweet days and nostalgic nights.

But when he opens his eyes and sees his brother's grin welcoming him, he knows it's something he'll never tire of. 

For once, they're no longer on separate sides.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow and chat with me [on tumblr](http://mf-luder-xf.tumblr.com)!


End file.
